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Both Jay and I turned toward the door, our argument stopped for the moment. In the doorway stood Bastian and another guy that I assumed to be his boyfriend, Kevyn. Bastian looked mad, probably madder than I had ever seen him, and I had seen him mad quite a few times growing up. Jay walked toward Bas, his argument with me and his sudden desire to announce my gayness to the world apparently forgotten.

"Bastian!" Jay announced rather excitedly. "Boy, am I surprised you're here! But I'm glad bro. Have I got something to tell you!"

Bastian stepped forward and intercepted Jay and pulled him to the other side of our room. "You're right, we need to talk."

The guy I assumed to be Kevyn watched Bastian and Jay huddle over on the other side of the room talking. He then turned toward me and headed over.

"Justyn?"

"Yeah, that's me."

He stuck out his hand. "I'm Kevyn."

I grabbed his hand and we shook. "Hi Kevyn, nice to meet you. Sorry I woke you up the other day."

"That's ok. It's not like we've not been woken up early before. Once Bas explained to me why you were calling, I didn't have a problem with it. It's great that you guys can talk."

"Yeah, that is cool. Do you have any brothers or sisters?"

"No, I'm an only child."

"That's too bad. Having brothers is cool, most of the time. Then times like this they kinda suck."

"Yeah, it seems like it."

Bastian and Jay continued to talk quietly in the other corner of the room. We couldn't make out what they were saying but they were getting a little animated in their discussions.

"Do you think Bas will be able to get through to Jayson?"

"I hope so. Jay has always been closer to Bastian growing up. Probably cause they're both jocks."

"And still no word from Tristan?"

I looked down at my feet. "No, nothing, not a call, not an email, nothing. I guess I must have frightened him away."

"I doubt that, Justyn. From what Bas told me of him, he was very much into you. I think it would take a lot to frighten him away from you. More than likely he's scared by what happened to him, as anyone would be. He wasn't out to many people right?"

Just as I was about to answer, Jayson yelled out "But he's a fucking fag!" And before anyone knew what was happening, including Jayce, he was flat on his back on the floor and Bastian was kneeling on his chest. His face was beet red. He was angry, angrier than when he first arrived almost an hour ago.

"I...DON'T...WANT...TO...FIND...OUT...THAT...YOU'VE...BEEN...HARASSING...HIM...ABOUT...THIS!" Bastian spoke slowly through clenched teeth. "DO...I...MAKE...MYSELF...CLEAR?"

"But he's a fag!"

"DO I MAKE MYSELF CLEAR!" Bastian screamed at him.

Jayce looked at me and looked at Bas. He did that several times. I could see the fear in his eyes, a look I'd never seen on him before. "Yeah, ok, whatever. I'll leave him alone," he finally said.

Bastian got up off of him and put out his hand to help him up. Jay ignored him and got up on his own. He grabbed his jacket and headed toward the door. "I gotta get outta here."

The three of us just stood there as Jayson reached the door.

"JJ wait," Bastian finally said.

Jayce didn't stop. He opened the door and walked out. Bastian started to move to go after him but Kevyn grabbed his arm and stopped him. Bastian turned to look at Kevyn and started to say something.

"Just give him time."

"But I've got to do something."

Now it was my turn to speak. "There's nothing you can do, bro. You know Jayce. He's got to be by himself, to sort this out. I'm sure this is all a big shock to him. He probably figured you'd be behind him, support him and when you didn't, it threw his world into a spin."

"Maybe I was too harsh."

"Maybe, but maybe you also told him what he needed to hear. Maybe you got through to him," Kevyn said.

I didn't say anything but I was secretly hoping Kevyn was right. I loved my twin, despite everything that was happening. He and I were best friends, even with having others as our best friends. As much as each of us wanted to be our own person, we couldn't be without the other for very long.

The most amount of time we had ever gone without being around one another was one summer when Jayce went to football camp. That three weeks was pure hell for both of us.

We all just continued to stand there staring at the open door. A couple of the guys on the floor walked by, some looked in. I'm sure we looked a little funny just standing there staring at the door, but we were all still a little shocked at what had happened.

Finally our stares were broken by the sound of Kevyn's stomach. Bastian looked at his watch and looked at Kevyn and they started giggling. "Right on time!"

I looked at the two of them. "What?"

"Well, you see, it's like this," Kevyn started. "It doesn't matter where we are, what we're doing, but every night at this time, my stomach makes that noise."

Bastian started laughing more. "Yeah, even if we're in the middle of dinner!" He stopped again to laugh a little more. "Speaking of dinner, have you eaten, JJ?"

Now that they mentioned it, I was kind of hungry. And I wasn't really in the mood for dorm food. "Yeah, I'm starved, but I'm not really in the mood for dorm food." But what to go for?

"You know Bas, we're here," Kevyn stated.

"Yeah."

"We really should, it's been a while."

"Yeah! Man, I really could go for some piccata."

I looked at both of them. "Granny J's?"

"Of course!" They both answered together.

* * *

Fifteen minutes later Kevyn pulled his car into the lot behind Granny J's and we all got out. I had looked for Jay as we were leaving and heading to the parking lot but I didn't see him. While I was grateful for what Bastian did for me, I just hope that he didn't ruin the relationship he has with Jay and I hope that Jay listens to him and that we can at least agree to disagree on this subject.

The wonderful smells of Granny J's cooking hit my nostrils as Bastian pulled open the door. The little bell attached over the door frame announced our presence and a couple of the patrons in the restaurant turned to look at us as we walked in. We were not standing near the "Please Wait to Be Seated" sign for more than five minutes when a voice from behind us called out, "well, as I live and wheeze."

We turned around to face Granny J in a rather bright red and green sweatshirt that had Christmas Trees and Santas all over it and some sort of plaid leggings. Sweatpants? Spandex? I wasn't exactly sure. But she looked like she belonged on top of a tree and not running a restaurant! I started to giggle but stopped when she shot me a look that would stop a moose dead in it's tracks.

Kevyn walked toward her with his arms held out. "Granny J," he said enveloping her in a hug. She hugged him back and then punched him in the arm when they broke apart. Kevyn rubbed his arm where she punched him. "Ouch. What was that for?"

"For not coming to see me more often!"

"Sorry Granny J."

"Don't give me sorry! Just come to see me more often!" She walked over and gave Bastian a hug. "You keeping this one out of trouble?"

"Of course," my older brother replied.

Granny J turned to me. "So where's yours?" She walked over to me. I bent down and gave her a hug as well.

"My what?"

"Your partner, lover, boyfriend, spouse, whatever you kids call it today. Where's Tristan?"

Her reading of mine and Tristan's relationship threw me for a loop for a second. Has everyone figured us out? "Oh. He left to go home already. He was done with finals."

"That little whelp. Going home without coming to see me. Just wait until I get my hands on him!" She turned away from us and started walking toward a table. We all looked at each other and decided we should follow her. She pointed to a booth in the corner. "I'll send Charlie out with some drinks." She walked away toward the kitchen.

Kevyn sat down still rubbing his arm. "Man, she really packs a wallop!"

"You ok babe?" Bastian asked.

"Yeah, I'll be fine, but it's going to leave a mark!"

"Hey guys," Charlie said as he dropped a basket of garlic bread on the table. He put sodas in front of each of us. "How's it going?"

"Good Charlie, how about you?"

"Fine. Busy working."

"You all set for Christmas?"

"Pretty much. I just need to wrap Grams gift. How about you guys?"

Kevyn looked at Bas and smiled. "Yeah, I'm all set."

Bastian got a quizzical look on his face. "I'm done as well," he finally said after Kevyn didn't say any more.

"I'm just about done," I said.

"Cool. You guys know what you want to order?"

Bastian started us off. "Yeah, I'll have the chicken picata with a side of ziti."

"I'll have the chicken parm with spaghetti," Kevyn spoke next.

Charlie turned to look at me. "I'll have the lasagna."

"It'll be out soon," he replied putting picking up the tray he delivered the drinks and the garlic bread on.

We spent the next few minutes just chatting about Christmas and other stuff when all of a sudden Bastian tapped Kevyn's arm excitedly.

"What?" Kevyn asked turning to him.

"Is that who I think it is?"

"Where?"

"Over there."

"Where over there? And who?"

"Over there! Is it squirt?"

"Where exactly?"

"Over there, at that table," Bastian replied pointing toward the far side of the restaurant. I turned to see where he was pointing.

Kevyn also turned to look. "Oh, over there." He looked for a few seconds. "Yeah, I think it is him. Wonder what he's doing here?"

My curiosity got the best of me. "Squirt?"

Kevyn looked at me. "Yeah, that's your brother's nickname for him."

I looked back at the guy they had nicknamed "squirt" and he didn't look that short. Of course, he was sitting at a booth, but still his feet hit the ground. "He doesn't look that small."

"Oh we don't call him squirt because of his height," Bastian said laughing.

"Ok," I replied. "There's got to be more to this story."

Kevyn chuckled along with Bas. "Yeah, he goes to the same gym as us. He's cute and we like watching him. He's got a really nice body and a really cute ass. He seems to spend more time walking around the gym looking at everyone then he does working out. He'll do one set of reps on a machine then he'll walk around. Come back, do another set and walk around."

"So why do you call him squirt then?"

Bastian spoke up. "Because soon after we noticed him in the gym, he was in the locker room with us one day and Kev and I were getting changed to take a shower after working out. I'd grabbed my towel and shampoo and soap from my bag and had them on the bench. I was getting undressed when he came up to me in just a towel and told me that he'd forgotten his shampoo and wanted to know if he could borrow a squirt of mine. I said sure. He grabbed a squirt and that was that. So now every time we see him we call him squirt."

"Yeah, we don't know his real name. We've seen him talking to some of the other guys there but never heard anyone call him by a name."

"You guys belong to a gym huh? That's cool. Are there a lot of hot guys there?"

Kevyn and Bastian both smiled. "Oh yeah," Kevyn answered. "There are a bunch. AFB, Boston Red Sox cap boy, shy boy, squirt, highlights boy, mama's boy..."

"...birthmark boy, prelude boy, and a few others that we've not attached names to," Bas finished.

"AFB?"

"Oh yeah, AFB. He's dreamy." Kev replied with lust in his eyes.

"His real name is Russell. But we call him AFB. The first few times we saw him there, he was wearing an Abercrombie and Fitch tee-shirt. He's this really hot looking guy with just the right amount of muscles. He's not overly developed like a lot of bodybuilders, but has some nice definition. He's got this really great smile."

"Shy boy?"

"Shy boy's real name is Mike. He's not as developed as AFB but he's still got a hot body. The few times we've seen him in the locker room he always changes his shirt with his back to everyone else, in a corner. Like he's very shy."

I looked at Bastian. "Is Boston Red Sox Cap boy you?"

Kevyn just laughed and Bastian blushed a little bit. "No, it's not me. Yeah, I love the Red Sox and I'm usually wearing my Sox ball cap, but I don't wear it when I'm working out. Don't want to get it too sweaty. There's this other guy that usually wears one. He's really cute too. We recently found out his name is Matthew."

"Have you guys ever..."

"Only in our dreams JJ, only in our dreams."

"Yeah. Your brother and I are big wimps in that area. Sure we think all these guys are hot, but we don't have the balls to go up to them."

"Besides, we'd probably get our asses handed to us on a plate, that's why."

"But you guys look like you are pretty strong."

"Even so, we don't like fighting kiddo."

Before I could answer Granny J showed up with three plates expertly stacked on her left arm. "Let me guess," she said as she grabbed the one closest to her shoulder. "Chicken picata is for you, the parm is yours and that leaves the lasagna for Justyn. You two really should try something else."

Bastian looked at her with a hurt look on his face. "But I like the picata!"

Granny J just smiled at him. "I know, I know. But variety is the spice of life."

"I thought nutmeg was," Kevyn replied with a straight face.

It took the rest of us a few seconds to process what he said and then both Bas and I started laughing. Granny J just smiled at him and headed back to the kitchen. "Nutmeg! Kids today!" she could be heard saying as she left the dining room.

The only sound that could be heard from the table for the next few minutes was three very hungry guys eating the delicious food that Granny J delivered.

"So Bas, what did you say to Jay?" I asked him after I'd polished off half of my dinner.

Kevyn looked at Bastian as well. "Yeah, babe, what did you say to him?"

Bastian did say anything as he tried to finishing chewing the piece of chicken that he had in his mouth. He finally swallowed and then spoke. "I first tried to find out why he has a problem with gays, and you in particular."

"What did he say?"

"Just the usual garbage that it's wrong, that it's disgusting, that it goes against nature, the usual crap."

"He doesn't actually believe that does he?" Kevyn asked.

"Yeah, I think he does. I tried to explain to him that it's all biological, that it's in the DNA of the person. I tried to get him to understand that he's got the DNA that makes him straight and that Justyn has the DNA that makes him gay. But he still didn't buy it."

"What did he say when you told him about you? Is that why you took him down? That was so cool! Where did you learn to do that?"

Bastian looked down at his plate when I mentioned that. "I'm not too happy about that. I shouldn't have done it. It was wrong."

"Maybe, babe, but it might have been the thing that he needs to realize that we're not all limp wristed pansies. That some of us fight back."

Bastian replied to Kevyn's statement but said it so quietly that neither of us could hear him.

"What?"

He looked up at Kevyn and then at me. "I didn't tell him about me."

"What? Why not?" I couldn't believe it.

"I couldn't do it. I don't know why, I just couldn't do it."

"So then why did you drop him?"

"Because he pissed me off. He was so adamant that gays deserved to be beaten up and killed because of what we are. Of what we have no control over. He was still that way even after I told him about Bailey." He glanced over at Kevyn, his eyes watering.

Kevyn looked back at Bas, his eyes also watering.

"Who's Bailey?"

Neither Bastian nor Kevyn said anything for a few minutes. They just sat there, looking at each other, with tears running down their faces. I was just about to ask the question again when I saw Bastian nod at Kevyn.

Kevyn turned to face me. "Bailey was a friend of your brother's. He and Bas met online last year in a chat room for gay teens. He was sixteen. He and his mother moved to California after she divorced his father. She divorced him shortly after Bailey came out to both of them and his older brother Mackenzie when he was fourteen. Apparently the day after Bailey came out to them, his brother and a couple of his buddies beat Bailey up pretty badly. He was in the hospital for several months cause of it. By the time he got out his mother had divorced his father and gotten restraining orders against them. She moved him and her to California from Florida." At this point Bastian was openingly crying. Kevyn put his arm around his boyfriend and pulled Bas' head to his shoulder.

"Bastian got an email from Bailey's mother earlier in the week. Bailey left to go to a friend's house on Saturday for a party or something and he never made it. They found his beaten body in the woods behind their apartment building the next morning, along with the baseball bat that was used to kill him."

"Oh my gawd!"

"The bat belonged to his brother. The police found and arrested him several hours later."

Nobody said anything for quite a while after Kevyn told me about Bailey.

"And you told Jay this?" I finally asked of Bas.

He pulled himself off of Kevyn's shoulder and wiped his eyes. "Yeah, I told him. I told him all about it. And you know what that little fucker said?"

I had a pretty good idea, but I didn't want to say it.

"He said good! Good! He said that Bailey got what he deserved and that his brother did the world a favor. That he was a "fucking fag". It was at that point that I took him down. I didn't even realize what I had done until I saw him on the floor."

"You don't actually think Jay would do that to me, do you?"

"If you asked me before this year, I would have said no in a heartbeat. But after tonight, I'm not so sure."

We finished the rest of our meal in silence. I'm not sure what Bas and Kevyn were thinking but I was thinking about what Kevyn said about Bas' friend Bailey. I can't believe anyone would do that to someone, let alone their own brother. I also can't believe that Jay would do that to me.

"You boys want anything for dessert?" Granny J asked returning to the table. She collected our dishes while she waited for our response.

Kevyn looked at each of us and both Bas and I nodded in the negative. "No thanks, Granny J. We're not in the mood for dessert. We'll just take the bill."

"I understand. The bill is all set. Merry Christmas boys."

"Granny J, we can't accept that. It's too much."

Granny J pulled herself up to her full height and still she had to look up to Kevyn while he was sitting. "You going to argue with Granny J?"

Bastian pushed at Kevyn indicating he wanted to get out. "Of course not Granny J. Kevyn's just trying to be a gentleman. Thank you. You're too kind."

Kevyn got out of the booth and Bas got out and headed over to the rest rooms. She looked up at Kevyn. "Is he going to be ok?"

"Who? Bastian? Yeah, he'll be fine."

"I overheard you guys talking while I was clearing the table behind you. It's a damn shame."

"Yeah, it is. But really, he'll be ok. He just needs some time to adjust."

Granny J just nodded as she headed back to the kitchen. Kevyn and I threw some money down on the table and headed over toward the door to wait.

After a couple of minutes Bastian came out of the bathroom and headed over to the table. He stopped short when he realized that we weren't there. He looked around the restaurant and then headed toward the door when he spotted us. His eyes were red, like he'd been crying in the bathroom. Kevyn placed a hand on his shoulder and gave it a gentle squeeze. Bastian looked at him and smiled. "I'll be ok," he said quietly.

Granny J came up to us at that point. Kevyn knelt down and gave her a hug good bye, and thanked her again for the dinner. After he finished I too knelt down and gave her a hug. She nearly knocked the wind out of me before she released me. I thanked her as well before standing back up.

She held out her arms for Bastian. He looked like he wanted to climb into her grasp as she hugged him tight. "It'll be alright," she said over and over to him. They finally broke their hug and we headed out into the night.

* * *

True to his word to Bastian, Jayson didn't bother me about my being gay nor my dating Tristan the remainder of the week that we had in school. Of course, I didn't see a lot of him either. He either came back at night after I'd gone to bed and left before I got up or he stayed with friends. Around campus was another story. I didn't hear any remarks specifically but I definitely felt like the others were watching me. Like they knew about me or about me and Tristan. I was never threatened but I started to feel unsafe.

Before I left for winter break, I went to the housing office and put in a request for a change of dorm assignment. They seemed less than helpful and even less inclined to switch me to another room, but they told me that they'd let me know before I returned from vacation.

By the time I got back from my last final and visiting the housing office, Jayson's stuff was gone from the room. I packed up my stuff and moved it into my car. It was a lot harder and a lot longer to do that then it was to move in when Tristan, Jay and their football buddies helped me to move in. After checking out with the Steve, the RA for our floor, I got in my car and started the long trip home. As I pulled out onto the main road and away from campus I couldn't help but feeling I'd never see the place again.